Delta’s Carpet Doesn’t Match Its Drapes, Settles For a Brazillian

By consumerist.comMay 19, 2006

Things have gotten really bad for Delta lately. Not only are they asking employees to volunteer to clean their airplanes, but, perhaps more damning, their aircraft are reportedly suffering from interior decoration failures. You know an airline is in straits most dire when they can’t even afford good drapery, without which, steerage class passengers are treated to full-frontal views of the world of delights and splendor that is first class. Bucky Turco was one such plebe and, armed with camera, documented the horror story.

I shot this image from a recent international Delta flight (Venezuela-Atlanta). I was sitting in bulkhead, also known as “poor man’s first class” and I couldn’t get over the fact that they had this strip of fabric as the divider between first class and coach. For some reason they were missing the divider.

And that curtain is as important for those first class passengers as it is for us who [must] suffer in coach. The last thing we want to see is pre-flight mimosas, warm towelettes, and smiles from flight attendants.

Comments

Edit Your Comment

” Your tipster must not fly much. After September 11th, airlines removed the drapes separating cabins in a common sense move to make sure a FA in the back can see what is going on in the front. Over the last year or so, airlines have been phasing in new ways of preventing inter-cabin movement – what your tipster is seeing is actually deliberate. Oh, and the bulkhead is poor mans first class? Try the exit row – frequent travelers avoid the bulkhead like the plague – no under seat storage.”

Guys… you’re both wrong. On the way down there was a curtain, a heavy one at that. And you couldn’t see a damn thing through it. They have not wholesale stopped using the curtains. And Jon, they avoid it like the plague because of no under seat storage? You ever hear of an above head compartment. They are these things that run all along each side of the plane. People put their bags up their. And then they are careful when they open it up as bags tend to shift during flight.

Yes, the curtains were up on the way down because the Venezuelans couldn’t care less whether the curtain is up or down. The curtain was DOWN on the flight back to the US because it’s got rules about flights within or to the US.

(Technically, the curtain should have been down until they were outside the US, meaning 12 miles offshore from the last point of US land… but I’m sure nobody bothers when the flight’s headed to that Godless Communist hellhole where they don’t recognise George W. Bush as the legit Son of God.)

Fly to and around Europe sometime and notice how easy it is… Then fly back home to the US and notice what a giant pain in the arse it is — even before you get to the gate in the “furrin” country.